Stassen

Blue text over a white band and white outline of the state of Wisconsin on a green background

This is a 1968 presidential campaign button for Wisconsin supporters of Harold E. Stassen, who served as Governor of Minnesota and sought the Republican nomination for U.S. president in in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988. Stassen's most successful of those tries was in 1948—he won four primaries that year, but lost the eventual nomination to Thomas Dewey.

Stassen graduated from the University of Minnesota law school in 1929, and in 1938 became the youngest governor in Minnesota history at the age of 31. Re-elected in 1940 and 1942, Stassen joined the U.S. Navy four months into his third term and served on the staff of Admiral William F. Halsey as a lieutenant commander. He was later promoted to captain. In 1945, Stassen was a delegate to the San Francisco conference that formed the United Nations, leading the campaign to keep the veto provision out of the Security Council (it was not). He also initiated the provision that allows UN member countries to act collectively against an aggressor even when that action was vetoed. In 1948 Stassen became president of the University of Pennsylvania. The last surviving member of the U.S. signers of the United Nations charter, Stassen died in 2001.